Semiotic Differance and the Re-disappearance of Image in Ming Landscape Painting

Abstract

Abstract: In the Ming dynasty, the mainstream in the development of Chinese landscape painting experienced a change from exploring the Tao in the external world to exploring it in the artist's inner world. This is a change "from the outside in." This essay aims to make a point that the Ming mainstream is a repetition of the previous dynasties' mainstream in the development of landscape painting throughout Chinese art history, which is particularly signified by the re-disappearance of human figures in late Ming landscape painting. Studying this issue from the Derridean perspective of 'differance," this essay examines how the signification process is deferred by the disguised images of the pathfinder, which centralizes the signification system for the mainstream. Thus, this essay concludes that the re-disappearance of the pathfinder image in landscape decentralizes the signification system and indicates the end of the mainstream in the development of Chinese landscape painting by the fall of the Ming.

Key words: mainstream, image-centrism, pathfinder, differance, decentralization, presence, absence, mind

Lian Duan. Semiotic Differance and the Re-disappearance of Image in Ming Landscape Painting[J]. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art.

References

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